All In A Day’s Work

Aunt Minnie, as she was known to everyone in George’s Inlet hadn’t slept well on that Monday night of June 25, 1934. In her thirty-five years as a midwife in the small Newfoundland outport, she had never had three women depending on her services on the same day, yet she had a feeling that this was exactly what was about to happen. It wasn’t as though she was able to have all three under one roof either, each of the women were in their own homes and she must be ready to go when called upon. Tuesday morning arrived sunny and warm and as usual the seventy-one year old was up and ready by 6 AM.  As one of the three women was her daughter-in-law and living in the same house, she had hoped that the delivery of her grandchild might have happened earlier, after all Gladys was three days overdue.  Checking on her once again, she found  that no labour pains had started yet but this was little consolation as with her first child there had been little warning before the baby girl arrived.

It was exactly nine-thirty when she saw the rowboat coming from across the harbour and knew that she was wanted by either Susie or Pearl. Quickly she reported to her son Jim that she expected to be leaving immediately and warned him to stay with Gladys  and to come for her immediately if she was needed. Her intuition proved to be accurate and within minutes she was sitting aboard the small punt headed for the Loder house where Susie’s pains were coming every five minutes now.  Thankfully, all went well and at 10:55 Neil and Susie were the proud parents of their fourth child and second son. At 12:30, Aunt Minnie announced that she was going to call on Pearl who lived just a few houses away and would be back within the hour to check on Susie again before going home to see how her daughter-in-law was doing. She would return she promised in the afternoon barring the arrival of her grandchild before that time. It was Pearl that she was most concerned about, probably because she was the oldest of the three women and had lost a son a few years earlier.  Arriving at the Dominie home a few minutes later she was pleased to find Pearl in good spirits and convinced that she had a few more hours decided that it would be best to see how Gladys was doing. After spending another twenty minutes with Susie, and convinced that she would be fine in the care of her sister, she asked to be taken back home.